Melone

With its hilarious shape, cheerful stripes, stalk-shaped handles and scalloped saucers, the Melon tea service must have been abhorrent to ornamental purists. During the design debate of the early 20th century, designer and architect Josef Hoffmann’s frivolous approach was diametrically opposed to that of his contemporaries, such as Adolf Loos. This Austrian architect, in his famous manifesto Ornament and Crime, equated the reduction of ornamentation with civilization. Over the course of the century, taste increasingly moved towards clean, functional modernism. The exuberant, frequently decorated designs of the Wiener Werkstätte, the craft workshops of which Hoffmann was the co-founder, went out of fashion and the last studio closed its doors in 1932. The popular Melon remained in production, however, and is still available for purchase in all kinds of colour combinations, from red and white stripes to black and gold.